Employees’ perceptionsof supervisory facets

An investigation within an Egyptian context

Ghada El-KotCollege of Management and Technology,

Arab Academy for Science and Technology and Maritime Transport,Alexandria, Egypt, and

Mike LeatOperations Management and Business Strategy Group,University of Plymouth Business School, Plymouth, UK

Abstract

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to explore the supervision facets from the employees’ perception inEgypt. Another aim is to explore the relationships between the supervisors’ facets and their satisfaction level.

Design/methodology/approach – To achieve the aims of this research, the researchers collecteddata from different employees in deterrent organizations in Egypt (n ¼ 272). Validity and reliabilitytests were computed for the measures used in the research. Descriptive statistics, inter-correlationswere computed for the variables used in this research to test the research hypothesis.

Findings – The similarities with the non-western contest were found in some facets of supervisors,while others are not. Significant relationships were found between supervisors’ facets and employees’satisfaction from their supervisors.

Practical implications – Some practical conclusions which would lead to effective and successfulorganizations in the Egyptian context are: creating a positive environment by focusing on the socialrelationships between employees and their supervisors and developing a clear job description to helpemployees understand what they have to do, along with allowing some real participation by theemployees in making decisions.

Originality/value – Investigating such concepts will provide the basic information needed todevelop a clear understanding for supervisory-employees relationships in a non-Western context,which is not available currently.

Keywords Line managers, Employee relations, Egypt

Paper type Research paper

IntroductionHuman resources are a vital asset to any organization; and these include two sets ofpeople: supervisors and employees. Organizations need effective employees andsupervisors to achieve their objectives. Understanding such a relationship, and how theycan work together, is considered a key for organizational success. Noe et al. (2003) arguedthat many organizations try to foster a culture of shared values among employees; whichwill have a positive effect on employees’ satisfaction and performance.

They argued that increasing job satisfaction can be derived from congruenceamong supervisors and employees. Also, employees might be satisfied from thesupervisors who provide social support, feedback and advise them at work when needed.This means focus on creating a supportive environment; which some organizations foster

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

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International Journal of Islamic andMiddle Eastern Finance and

ManagementVol. 1 No. 2, 2008

pp. 149-165q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

1753-8394DOI 10.1108/17538390810880991

by moving towards building team working. The importance of supervision role was alsomentioned by Satava and Jim Weber (1998) who referred to what so-called ABCs ofsupervision, which is considered by them as the skilled supervisor, who can manage,direct, monitor, and motivate employees to work better in a friendly culture.

The HR department in organizations is facing a challenge to develop a committed andproductive workforce in a turbulent environment and in order to achieve organizationalsuccess. Forster (2006) argued that finding and keeping talented employees hadbecome one of the main issues confronting companies due to the rapid changes in theenvironment, including the technical environment. Buhler (2007) mentioned thatthe nature of leadership, the supervisory role and the managerial roles are facing somechanges due to the new technologies implemented in this century. Humphrey and Stokes(2000) also argued for the importance of the role of the supervisors in the workplace;which would have positive effects on organizations’ success.

Supervisors facetsWeiss (2007) focused on effective supervisory leadership and argued that supervisorsneed individual characteristics, such as problem-solving skills, being fair, productionconcentration, recognizing others’ work, taking positive action and giving feedback toemployees, in addition to being energetic, being able to create new ideas and beingconfident; all of which would help in performing the job well. Buhler (2007) argued thatan effective leader is able to identify how to lead depending on people and the situation.The focus was on the interpersonal skills and communication skills and argued forsituational leadership as there is no one-size-fits-all leadership style that is appropriatefor all situations for all people.

Humphrey and Stokes (2000) mentioned some important skills that supervisors need tolead their organizations in the twenty-first century. These skills are divided into threecategories; people, technical and administrative. Cropper (1994) added that organizations’success comes from the motivated, committed, skilled employees with positive attitudestowards their organizations and he referred to the supervisors who play the key roles tocreate the environment where these characteristics occur naturally and consistently.Balser and Stern (1999) focused on how supervisors manage employee performanceproblems and found that supervisors enact their role as agents of the organization.Challagalla and Shervani (1996) found supervisory control to have an indirect impact onperformance of salespersons and have direct and indirect effects on satisfaction.

Wiley (1992) found that employee productivity could be increased by creating amotivating-supportive environment that requires the integration of four vitalcomponents as represented by the personal characteristics of employees, the jobframework, the distinctive traits of supervisors, and the corporate philosophy. Sheargued that supervisors should be capable of nurturing a team spirit, maintaining opencommunications with subordinates and employing participative managementtechniques in order to display qualities such as fairness, honesty, supportivenessand accessibility. Wiley (1992) also added that there are certain qualities thatsupervisors possess which enable them to be a motivating factor for employees. Someof these qualities are honesty, supportiveness, empathy, accessibility, fairness, andopenness. She argued that supportive supervisors exhibit a team spirit and aparticipative management style.

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Snowden (2007) referred to a leader’s framework for decision making and focusedon the importance of some skills that each leader should have such as; knowing how toreact with the complex situational context that organizations face these days by havinga sense of work, the ability to analyze situations and respond to it. Innovation,creativity, communication and planning are important skills needed to help leadersperform effectively.

Rodriguez (2007) added that an effective leader is one who encourages free and opencommunication, and trains team members in the best possible way to guaranteeeffective performance. Stahl (2007) focused on the characteristics of an influentialleader in the corporate world. He believes that the key to effective leadership is theability to influence people. In order to influence others, leaders should understandthe targeted audience, build rapport and present the content effectively in real time.McDonald (2007) referred to how leaders can influence others to think and perform innew ways and argued that leadership skill is number one in any paradigm shifttowards better performance.

Supervisors’ facets, employees’ satisfaction and performanceGovindarajulu and Daily (2004) studied the importance of top management role/supervisoryrole by focusing on employer and employee factors affecting environmental performance inorganizations. They argued for the importance of the integration between top managementcommitment, employee empowerment, rewards, feedback and review, and environmentalperformance. Orpen (1994) referred to the crucial role that supervisors play in organizationsand perceived them as more central to effective organizational performance than anybodyelse. He argued that in manufacturing organizations, supervisors are typically felt to havemore influence, for both good and bad, than other groups of employees on such outcomes asabsenteeism, product quality, cost reduction and labor relations.

Macneil (2001) referred to the importance of supervisors in their firms, because they areat the interface between the organization and its work teams. He argued that supervisorswho are effective facilitators will utilize their own learning and interpersonal skills toencourage informal learning opportunities through knowledge-sharing in their workteams, thus improving the team’s performance. Pechlivanidis and Katsimpra (2004)explored the role of the manager-leader when decisions are being implemented. Theyfocused on contingency theories of leadership which focused on the choice of a specificversion of his/her supervisory style. Camuffo and Gerli (2007) investigated the nature ofthe competencies for production supervisors in northeast Italian firms and argued thattheir results which emphasised the supervisor’s top-down trust of the subordinateemployees may be more effective in collectivist cultures than in individualist cultures.

Bettencourt and Brown (1997) found that contact employee prosocial servicebehaviors and job satisfaction were products of fairness of job supervision, pay andpromotion rules and supervisor administration. They addressed the issue of workplacefairness; which refers to employee perceptions of the “rightness” of outcomes,procedures and interactions within the firm. They found fairness of job supervision is asignificant, positive predictor of all three types of contact employee prosocial behavior.The same findings were found by Moorman (1991) and Niehoff and Moorman (1993);which identified a significant influence of fairness of supervisory behaviors oncooperation, but no influence of fairness of formal rules.

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Costigan et al. (2007) examined the relationship of a supervisor’s affect- andcognition-based trust to a subordinate employee’s self-ratings of enterprising behavior,which includes creativity, risk taking, initiative, motivation, and assertiveness, and tothe supervisor’s and coworker’s ratings of the subordinate’s enterprising behavior.The findings of their study showed that the supervisor’s cognition- and affect-basedtrust of the employee are associated with that employee’s enterprising behavior.

Tabak (1997) referred to the factors that may influence employee creativity asstudied by Oldham and Cummings (1996). These four factors are creative personality,job complexity, supportive supervision and non-controlling supervision. Their resultssuggest that the four factors all have to be present to maintain creative performance.Challagalla and Shervani (1996) studied the impact of dimensions and typesof supervisory control on salesperson performance and satisfaction. Results show thatsupervisory controls are found to have an indirect impact on the performanceof salespersons, and to have direct and indirect effects on satisfaction.

Shelton (2000) referred to the relationship between supervisor and employees byinvestigating how a supervisor’s attitude can affect employee’s performance. He arguedthat many problems with employees in organisations stem from the relationshipbetween employee and supervisor. He noted that understanding supervisor-employeeinteractions or relationships would help in creating a more productive workingrelationship by focusing upon increasing supervisory self-awareness of their employeesand establishing a better relationship with employees through supervisor-employeefeedback. El-Kot (2004) investigated the determinants of managerial performanceamong middle-level managers in Egypt and provided insight into the factors that lead toeffective managerial practices. For the managers to be effective, they should havecommunication and leadership skills, planning and decision-making ability, pastexperience and self-confidence and charisma.

Different authors identified the relationship between leadership style andorganizational effectiveness and success depends on the situation and the situationalfactors involved. For example, Greenberg and Baron (2000) explained the situationalfactors, which are individual factors, social factors and environmental factors anddiscussed how each manager/supervisor or leader should behave in a certain situation.The contingency leadership models, which focused on the situation and the ability toisolate situational factors, such as: the Fiedler contingency model, the leader-participationmodel, the path-goal theory and Hersey and Blanchard’s situational theory. Reviewingthese models and investigating the main idea behind each one can conclude some of themain important features that should be related to the leaders’ behaviors. The Fiedlercontingency model focused mainly upon the task-oriented and the relationship oriented,the leader-participation model focused mainly upon the degree of participation, thepath-goal theory focused mainly upon the directive leader, the supportive leader, theparticipative leader, and the achievement-oriented leader, Hersey and Blanchard’ssituational theory focused mainly upon task-relationship dimensions with four possiblebehaviors; high task-low relationship or high task-high relationship or low task-lowrelationship, or low task-high relationship.

Supervisors’ roles in satisfying employees and improving their performance werealso examined by previous researches, for example, Cully et al. (1998), Greenberg andBaron (1997) and Mullins (1996) who found that job satisfaction could be also enhancedby giving the employees some degree of autonomy and participation in making

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decisions that might affect their jobs. They also argued for enhancing employees’satisfaction by improving the employee-supervisor relationship. They found high levelof job satisfaction among employees who believe that their supervisors are competentand treat them with respect. Mullins (1996) noted that effective supervisors might havebeen seen as necessary for enhancing job satisfaction. Mullins (1996) and Savery (1996)revealed the importance of the organizational climate and working condition toenhance employees’ satisfaction. Mullins (1996) also added the importance of someother issues such as; salaries and wages, job variety, clarity of goals, security, socialissues and interpersonal issues such as growth, in enhancing employees’ satisfaction.Rad and Yarmohammadian (2006) found a significant relationship betweenparticipative leadership styles and employees satisfaction. El-Kot (2003) in a surveyof employees and managers in manufacturing and service Egyptian organizationsfound that participative management, as a management style, was found in someEgyptian organizations and also that there is a positive relationship between the use ofparticipative management style and employees’ job satisfaction. These finding werebased on two samples (N1 ¼ 472 and N2 ¼ 230).

EgyptThere is still relatively little knowledge about supervisors’ aspects which have directand indirect effects on employees’ satisfaction and performance at work in the MiddleEast. There is a similar shortage of research evidence concerning management orsupervision styles in the Middle East. Some researchers found certain influences ofwestern management approaches and practices in Middle Eastern countries, as theyopen themselves up to foreign investment and become more involved in – and subjectto – the pressures of international business and increased competition, as well asbecome more aware of alternative management theories and practices through goingabroad to study and obtain management qualifications. Budhwar and Mellahi (2007)conclude from the relatively limited evidence available that Middle Eastern countriesappear to have management systems similar to most other developing countries andthat these emphasise sensitivity to local cultural norms, which influence values,expectations, attitudes and behaviour, and restricted participation in decision making.They also identify the considerable influence of Islamic work ethics (IWEs) andprinciples. Egypt was one of the Middle Eastern countries to pursue an open-doorpolicy to foreign investment and exhibits many of the characteristics of Middle Easterncountries. As far as the authors of this study are aware, there are no reported studiesexamining or investigating supervisors’ facets in Egypt or investigated these facetswith employees’ satisfaction; which are the subject of this study.

Socio-cultural contextThe Egyptian culture is a blend of Arab and Middle Eastern influences. In his originalresearch, Hofstede (1980) did not specifically examine work-related values in Egypt.However, he does present findings relating to Arab societies in general. Hofstede (1980)classified Arab-speaking countries as demonstrating high-power distance, moderatelystrong uncertainty avoidance, low individualism and moderate masculinity.

The high-power distance suggests that employees are likely to accept an unequaldistribution of power and expect to be directed by their supervisors whose authority theyrespect. The moderately strong desire to avoid uncertainty suggests that employees are

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likely to welcome the security afforded by working for the same organization for a longtime, having clear career paths and clearly specified job descriptions. The lowindividualism suggests that relationships are likely to be emphasised at the expense of thetask and team working and a team focus are likely to be congruent with this orientation.

Support for the appropriateness of Hofstede’s (1980) findings and their implicationsis provided for example by Nydell (1996) who referred to respect for seniority in Arabcountries and in Egypt, and Parnell and Hatem (1999) who noted employees oftentended to agree with their supervisors. They confirm the importance of relationshipsover the task and the importance of loyalty to the group. They also comment thatfriendship is a cornerstone of the Egyptian culture.

ReligionWhile other religions are present in Egypt, Islam is the dominant religion and anumber of authors have referred to and examined the impact of Islam, for example:Hickson and Pugh (1995), Ali (1996), Parnell and Hatem (1999) and Yousef (2001). TheIWE as found by Yousef (2001) emphasizes and encourages hard work, which isperceived as; a virtue through which sins can be resolved, a source of financialindependence and a means of achieving personal growth, self-fulfilment, self-respectand self-satisfaction. The IWE also emphasizes cooperation in work and consultation,the latter being seen as a way of overcoming obstacles or avoiding mistakes. Socialrelations at work are also encouraged, it is important to have good relationships atwork with both equals and superiors partly for the satisfaction this brings of itself andpartly because links inside and outside work can be vital to survival and success.Yousef (2001) also comments that his research suggests that those who support theIWE are more committed to their organizations and more satisfied with their jobs.

AimThere is still relatively little knowledge about employee expectations, behavior andperceived outcomes of and from work in the Middle East. Budhwar and Mellahi (2007)referred to the growing emphasize on the development of the human resources aspectsin most of the countries in the Middle East region. They referred also to the shortage inthe literatures found examine or investigate HRM in the Middle East region. Atiyyah(1993) and Parnell and Hatem (1999) noted that there has so far been relatively littleresearch undertaken into the management practices employed in Arab countries.The aim of this research is to explore certain features related to managementpractices in the Egyptian context by investigating the supervision concepts from theemployees’ point of view in some chosen organizations. Investigating these conceptswill provide us with the basic information needed to develop a clear understanding ofsupervisory-employees relationships in a non-western context; which is not availableup-to-date. Part of this aim also is to explore the relationships (if any) betweenthe supervisors’ facets that Egyptian employees perceive about their supervisors andtheir satisfaction. Previous studies indicated some important variables for determiningsupervision concepts in different cultures, however, in an Egyptian culture the viewsmight vary according to the culture differences. Therefore, investigating supervisionconcept and its relationship with employees’ satisfaction in Egypt would addknowledge to previous studies in the Middle East region in general and to the Egyptiancontext specifically.

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Reviewing the Arab literature revealed that no up-to-date study investigated thesupervisors’ facets from employees’ perspective in the manufacturing or serviceorganizations in the Egyptian context. This adds importance to this research so thatwe form a better understanding of supervisory facets along with their impact onemployees’ satisfaction in Egypt.

SampleTo achieve the aims of this research, the researchers collected data from differentemployees working with the same supervisor in the chosen organizations. Collectingdata in Egypt is really difficult as not all managers will allow the researchers to dealwith the employees in the work setting. Therefore, a convenience sample was chosen asone of the researchers got an access to some organizations, Sekaran (2003) argued forthe possibility of using convenience sample for social research. The sample used in thisresearch comprised (n ¼ 272) from different employees from different manufacturingand services organizations in Egypt.

Measure: two measures were employed in this research

(1) The scale used in this research is a part of the Michigan OrganizationalAssessment Questionnaire by Cammann et al., 1979 and Seashore et al., 1982.The scale compromises 30 items, which measuring ten supervision concept(facets) based on employees’ perception towards their supervisors. Three itemsfor production orientation, five items for control of work, three items to measurework facilitation-goal setting, two items for work facilitation-problem solving,seven items for work facilitation-subordinate relations, two items for bias, threeitems for consideration, two items for participation, two items to measuredecision centralization and one item for competence. The scale used is afive-point Likert scale ranged from 5 strongly agree to 1 strongly disagree.Three items from the scale were revised scores as suggested from the originalscale (see the Appendix for items).

(2) The second scale used in this research is the job satisfaction measure: threeitems of Job Diagnostic Survey by Hackman and Oldham (1975) was employedin this study to measure employees’ satisfaction towards their jobs mainly byfocusing upon their supervisors. Respondents were asked to read the scale andexpress their opinions on a five-point Likert scale; (1 – strongly dissatisfied and5 – strongly satisfied) (see the Appendix for items).

ProceduresA questionnaire as a data collection method was used in this research. The questionnaireswere distributed and collected back via the researchers with no time limit for completingthem. Respondent were asked to read the questionnaire items carefully and express theiropinion towards each item. Data were collected between September 2006 and March 2007.Of 450 distributed questionnaires; only 272 completed and returned questionnaires wereemployed in this study with a 60 percent response rate.

ResultsThis study will be divided into two stages; Stage 1 with the aim of investigating thesupervisors’ facets by using factor analysis and Stage 2 by focusing on investigating

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the relationship between the supervisors’ facets – as perceived from the employeesin the chosen Egyptian sample – and employees’ satisfaction.

Stage 1: investigating supervisor’s facets: reliability and validity of the scaleReliability assessment. Alpha coefficients (Table I) were calculated for each dimensionof the scale. All a coefficients, representing the scale’s internal consistency, are quitehigh. Alpha coefficients for each dimension range from 0.64 to 0.81 except for only onedimension, which is 0.58; which is considered as marginal by Finkelstein (1992).

Exploratory factor analysis. The aim is to explore the issues identified in theforegoing discussion by testing the following hypotheses in an Egyptian context:

H1. Using exploratory factor analysis (EFA), responses to the supervision scalewill yield a ten-factor solution comprising production orientation, control ofwork, work facilitation-goal setting, work facilitation-problem solving, workfacilitation-subordinate relations, bias, consideration, participation, decisioncentralization and competence factors.

Factor analysis was used in this research to assess the inter-relationships of theselected variables without imposing a predetermined structure by using an EFA (Hairet al., 1995). Factor analysis was conducted to determine whether data from Egyptshare similar data structure with the data from other studies in different settings. Hairet al. (1995, p. 385) argued for running the EFA at different sample sizes, with factorloading of 0.30 for sample size 350 and with factor loading of 0.35 for sample size 250.Therefore, in the current research, with a sample size of 272, it was decided to use afactor loading of $0.35 as being significant.

An EFA was conducted on a full sample (n ¼ 272). A principal componentsanalysis revealed that six principal components (factors) had Eigenvalues greater thanone (KMO test of sampling adequacy ¼ 0.89; Bartlett’s test of Sphericity, p , 0.0000),which showed that it is acceptable to proceed with the analysis. These six factorsaccounted for 58.12 percent of the variance and the six extracted factors wereinter-correlated (0.001 # r # 0.73). The results of EFA with the full sample n ¼ 272 isshown in Table II. As seen from Table II, the pattern of factor loading was as expectedfor some dimensions and not as expected for others. From Table II, it is clear that thereare some differences in understanding and interpreting the supervision facets from theemployees’ perspective in Egypt when compared with research findings elsewhere.

Scale dimensionsNumber of items

in each dimension a Coefficients

Production orientation 3 0.64Control of work 5 0.73Work facilitation-goal setting 3 0.74Work facilitation-problem solving 2 0.68Work facilitation-subordinate relations 7 0.41 and 0.79 if one item deletedBias 2 0.79Consideration 3 0.70Participation 2 0.58Decision centralization 2 0.81Competence 1 Not applicable on one item

Table I.a coefficients for eachdimension of the scale aswell as for the total scale

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Table II.The results of EFA, the

rotated factor matrix

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Some dimensions are the same as found in different settings or as seen by differentemployees in western cultures, while others are not. For Factor 1, 11 items are loadedon this factor; which concerned with control of work, work-facilitation-goal setting,work-facilitation problem solving and competence. It seems that all of these itemsfocused upon the competence of the work as guided from the supervisors to theiremployees, therefore, F1 labeled as “Supervisory Competence”. Six items were loadedon Factor 2; which focused three items of work facilitation-subordinate relationsand three items of consideration, therefore, “Supervisory facilitation” was the labeledsuggested for this new factor as it is presents the different ways that supervisor can usefrom the employees perception to facilitate their jobs by dealing with personnel issuesor personnel relations. For Factor 3, four items from work facilitation-subordinaterelations were loaded upon this factor; therefore, the label for this factor is“Supervisory-subordinate relations.” Four items were loaded on Factor 4; which areparticipation and decision centralization, therefore, the label for this factor is“employees’ involvement in decision making.” Factor 5 compromised all items thatrelated to production orientation, therefore, this factor labeled “Production orientation.”Factor 6 compromised two items related to bias, therefore, this factor labeled “bias.”

The similarities with the non-western context were found in production orientationand bias as they were clear as seen and found by other employees in other cultures.However, the Egyptian sample – in this study – referred to different understanding asthey combined the role of supervisor in participation and decision making together.They also separated subordinate relations into two sets. There is also a combination ofcontrol of work, goal setting, problem solving and competence together; employees inEgypt perceive these aspects of the supervisory role as one component.

Stage 2: supervisors facets and employees’ satisfaction in an Egyptian contextThe aim of this part is to investigate the relationship between the supervisors’ facetsand employees’ satisfaction.

Descriptive statistics and correlationsTable III shows means, standard deviations, and inter-correlations for supervisors’facets and employees’ satisfaction. The internal consistency for the employees’satisfaction from their supervisors was (0.88) which are considered as acceptable levelas suggested by Finkelstein (1992) and Nunnally (1970).

ScaleM

(n ¼ 272) SD F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7

F1: supervisory competence 4.04 0.58 1 0.71 * * 0.68 * * 0.25 * 0.49 * * 20.07 0.56 *

F2: supervisory facilitation 3.76 0.62 1 0.62 * * 0.15 * 0.40 * * 20.06 0.73 * *

F3: supervisory-subordinaterelations 4.05 0.65 1 0.24 * 0.45 * * 20.12 0.54 * *

F4: employees’ involvementin decision making 3.25 0.47 1 0.56 * 20.32 0.53 * *

F5: production orientation 4.44 0.51 1 20.15 0.63 * *

F6: bias 2.24 1.20 1 20.23 *

F7: employees’ satisfactionfrom their supervisors 4.06 0.92 1

Table III.Means, standarddeviations andinter-correlations forsupervisors’ facets andemployees’ satisfaction

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Based on the findings from previous studies (Moorman, 1991; Emmert and Taher,1992; Wiley, 1992; Niehoff and Moorman, 1993; Mullins, 1996; Challagalla andShervani, 1996; Bettencourt and Brown, 1997; Greenberg and Baron, 1997; Cully et al.,1998; Balser and Stern, 1999; Eby et al., 1999; Kim, 2002) that focused on measuring therelationship between supervisors and employees’ satisfaction, the followinghypotheses will be tested in the Egyptian context:

H2. The correlation between the supervisors’ facets and employees’ satisfaction fromtheir supervisors will be statistically significant and positive (except for bias).

To test H2 for the relationship between supervisors’ facets and employees’ satisfactionfrom their supervisors, a correlation was computed. The correlation betweensupervisors’ facets and employees satisfaction about their supervision were moderateand statistically significant (r ranged from 0.23 to 0.73). There was positive andstatistically significant correlation found between supervisory competence andsupervisors’ facets as an indicator of job satisfaction (r ¼ 0.56 *). There is a positiveand statistically significant relationship found between supervisory facilitation andemployees satisfaction from their supervisors (r ¼ 0.73 * *), the correlation betweensupervisory-subordinate relations and employees satisfaction from their supervisorswere statistically significant (r ¼ 0.54 * *). The correlation employees’ involvement indecision making with employees satisfaction from their supervisors was alsostatistically significant (r ¼ 0.53 * *). The correlation between production orientationand employees satisfaction from their supervisors job satisfaction were statisticallysignificant (r ¼ 0.63 * *). There was low but some of them are have statisticallysignificant correlation between bias and employees satisfaction from their supervisors(r ¼ 20.23). Hence, H2 was accepted for the significant and positive relationshipbetween supervisors’ facets and employees’ satisfaction from their supervisors-exceptfor the bias; which is significant and negative as expected.

Based on the findings from employees satisfaction; it can be concluded that basedon the chosen sample in the Egyptian context, employees are satisfied with theirsupervisors based on the supervisors facets investigated in this study. This wouldraise an important issue; which is what is the rank of importance of the supervisors’facets from the employees’ perception? Therefore, a short questionnaire wasdistributed among some employees (n ¼ 50) asking for the rank of importance fromtheir point of view towards the six supervisors’ facets found in Egypt. Table IV showsthe rank of importance for the six supervisors’ facets in the chosen sample.

Based on the findings in Table IV, employees rank as first in importance the facilitationthat their supervisors would provide them, followed by the relationship that they havewith their supervisors at work. The level of involvement in the decision-making process is

Scale Frequency (n ¼ 50) Rank of importance

F1: supervisory competence 27 4F2: supervisory facilitation 43 1F3: supervisory-subordinate relations 38 2F4: employees’ involvement in decision making 36 3F5: production orientation 21 5F6: bias 18 6

Table IV.Rank of importance for

the six supervisors’ facetswith a sample of

50 employees

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seen by them as the next most important after the relationships with their supervisors.This is what we would expect in an Egyptian culture (see Discussion).

DiscussionSupervisors are regarded as an effective tool in influencing employees’ performance inorganizations. Previous studies identified the importance of the link between satisfiedemployees and a number of work factors; such as relationships with the managementteam, with supervisors, with pay and promotion.

The aims of this paper were to investigate the supervisors’ facets in the Egyptiancontext; which would help understanding supervisor-employees relationships and toinvestigate the relationships between supervisors’ facets and employees’ satisfactionbased on employees’ perception. Based on these research findings, it can be concluded thatthe six supervisors’ facets as perceived by the employees in Egypt are; supervisoryfacilitation, supervisory competence, supervisory-subordinate relations, employees’involvement in decision making, production orientation and bias.

Some differences have been found compared with the previous findings in a westerncontext. In the western context, the employees perceive their supervisors’ facets as ten facets;which are production orientation, control of work, work facilitation-goal setting, workfacilitation-problem solving, work facilitation-subordinate relations, bias, consideration,participation, decision centralization and competence factors. These findings might beexplained by the effect of the culture dimensions. Egypt is described as high-power distanceculture (Hofstede, 1984); which would foster employees to follow what they have been toldby their supervisors as they might be afraid to disagree with them, this is also due to themoderately – strong uncertainty avoidance dimension and consistent with Islamic beliefthat if you stick to the rules given by supervisors; every thing will be well. This might havean explanation of the employees’ perception towards the role of their supervisors; whichthey found as a source of facilitation to achieve their work perfectly.

This paper also aimed to investigate the relationship between the supervisors’ facetsand employees’ satisfaction with their supervisors and we have found some significantrelationships between the supervisory facets and employees’ satisfaction with theirsupervisors in the Egyptian context. Positive and significant relationships were foundbetween; supervisory facilitation, supervisory competence, supervisory-subordinaterelations, employees’ involvement in decision making, a production orientation (assupervisors’ facets) and employees satisfaction. There is also a negative and significantrelationship found between bias (as part of supervisor’s facets) and employees’satisfaction with their supervisors. These findings are consistent with the findings ofChallagalla and Shervani (1996) and Bettencourt and Brown (1997); which foundsignificant relationships between supervisors and satisfaction. These findings alsosupport previous research which referred to the important role that supervisors playin satisfying employees (Cully et al., 1998; Mullins, 1996). Therefore, the second researchhypothesis was accepted.

These findings might be explained by the effect of the work related issues such asthe IWEs; which is perceived by employees in Arab countries as a source of jobsatisfaction (Yousef, 2001). The IWE emphasizes and encourages employees to workwith high level of cooperation and consultation with others, fosters hard work, andencourages social relations at work including good relationships at work betweenemployees and their supervisors.

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By asking employees to rank the importance of the six supervisors’ facets based ontheir perception, we discover that they ranked as most important the facilitation, supportand help, that their supervisors would provide them, followed by the relationship that theyhave with their supervisors at work. The level of involvement in the decision-makingprocess is seen by them as the third most important after the relationships with theirsupervisors. This ranking is consistent with what we would expect in an Arab countryinfluenced by Islam which emphasizes the importance of supportive and good socialrelationships at work (Leat and El-Kot, 2007; Parnell and Hatem, 1999). Also, Camuffo andGerli (2007) suggested a level of sharing and trust between supervisors and employees tobe more effective in a collectivist culture and Egypt is described as moderate to high incollectivism (Hofstede, 1984). Therefore, supportive social relations are very important atthe workplace and as a source of employee satisfaction. The emphasis placed onparticipation in decision making is consistent with the findings of El-Kot (2003) who founda positive and significant relationship between participative leadership style andemployees’ satisfaction in the Egyptian workplace.

ConclusionFrom the above findings, we might be able to draw some tentative conclusionsregarding the practices that should be pursued in order to help practitioners in theorganizations understand and improve the supervisory-employees relationships inEgypt and in turn improve employee satisfaction with all the benefits that this offers interms of contributing to organizational effectiveness and success. Egypt is an Arabcountry and is influenced by Islam which would point up the importance of socialrelationships at work. Some of these practical implementations are: first, create apositive environment by focusing on the supportive and social relationships betweenemployees and their supervisors. Second, develop a clear job description to helpemployees understanding of what they have to do and to determine the relationshipswith their supervisors. Third, allow employees to play a real role in making decisions.Fourth, focus on developing a high level of trust between employees and theirsupervisors to guarantee a high level of cooperation in the workplace.

Further researchIn this research, we have found significant relationships between supervisors’ facetsand job satisfaction but there are other aspects of the supervisor-subordinaterelationship which also need to be examined for their influence on employeessatisfaction including the style of supervision and the role and influence of consultationand participation in decision making, the individual differences among employees andthe organizational culture in order to determine the sources for developing positivework environment in Egypt; which would increase employees’ satisfaction andimprove employees’ performance in an Arab context.

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Appendix

(1) My supervisor demands that people give their best effort.

(2) My supervisor insists that subordinates work hard.

(3) My supervisor demands that subordinates do high-quality work.

(4) My supervisor keeps informed about the work which is being done.

(5) My supervisor plans out work in advance.

(6) My supervisor handles the administrative parts of his or her job extremely well.

(7) My supervisor maintains high standards of performance.

(8) My supervisor knows the technical parts of his or her job extremely well.

(9) My supervisor makes sure subordinates have clear goals to achieve.

(10) My supervisor makes sure subordinates know what has to be done.

(11) My supervisor makes it clear how I should do my job.

(12) My supervisor helps me solve work-related problems.

(13) My supervisor helps me discover problems before they get too bad.

(14) My supervisor keeps informed about the way subordinates think and feel about things.

(15) My supervisor keeps subordinates informed.

(16) My supervisor helps subordinates develop their skills.

(17) My supervisor has the respect of subordinates.

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(18) My supervisor deals with subordinates well.

(19) My supervisor is always fair with subordinates.

(20) My supervisor tends to play favorites.

(21) My supervisor is biased on the basis of race.

(22) My supervisor is biased on the basis of gender.

(23) My supervisor helps subordinates with their personal problems.

(24) My supervisor is concerned about me as a person.

(25) My supervisor feels each subordinates is important as an individual.

(26) My supervisor encourages subordinates to participate in important decisions.

(27) My supervisor encourages people to speak up when they disagree with a decision.

(28) My supervisor makes most decisions without asking subordinates for their opinions.

(29) My supervisor makes important decisions without involving subordinates.

(30) My supervisor is competent.

Employees’ satisfaction from their supervisors

(1) The degree of respect and fair treatment I receive from my boss.

(2) The amount of support and guidance I receive from my supervisor.

(3) The overall quality of the supervision I receive in my work.

Corresponding authorGhada El-Kot can be contacted at: ghada.elkot@plymouth.ac.uk; gsadr@yahoo.com

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